Desperation Quotes

Sharpe had no thought of deserting now, for now he was about to fight. If there was any one good reason to join the army, it was to fight. Not to hurry up and do nothing, but to fight the King's enemies, and this enemy had been shocked by the awful violence of the close-range volley and now they stared in horror as the redcoats screamed and ran towards them. The 33rd, released from the tight discipline of the ranks, charged eagerly. There was loot ahead. Loot and food and stunned men to slaughter and there were few men in the 33rd who did not like a good fight. Not many had joined the ranks out of patriotism; instead, like Sharpe, they had taken the King's shilling because hunger or desperation had forced them into uniform, but they were still good soldiers. They came from the gutters of Britain where a man survived by savagery rather than by cleverness. They were brawlers and bastards, alley-fighters with nothing to lose but tuppence a day. ~ Bernard Cornwell

Just one word, infused with naked desperation; half prayer, half enchantment. It felt like a freezing charm on her soul making her his prisoner, yet setting her free all at once. ~ Genevieve Dewey

People need motivation to do anything. I don't think human beings learn anything without desperation. ~ Jim Carrey

He took her face in his hands and claimed her mouth with his. It felt like he had been drowning, and she was his life raft. This was not a soft, sensual kiss. This was a kiss of desperation. A kiss of need, not want. And Cali needed it just as much as Matthew. ~ Sherri Hayes

If we imagine that God is somehow punishing us, then we will live our lives in desperation and in fear that we are somehow avoiding displeasing God. The difficulty with that is as many ideas about how to displease and how to please God, as there are hairs on your head. ~ Neale Donald Walsch

This urbanization that's taking place around the world is very real. But if it's people that are seeking an urbanized environment out of desperation, that's not going to be helpful long term. ~ Mick Cornett

​ "This place is fun, Downtown is fun!" I said, looking at the blurred lights of the lamps on the street. "No wonder you left me for this… I wouldn't be surprised if a ghost came out." I closed my fist, trying to catch the lights. "Now I get it, Dan! You're a ghost!"
​ "Am I?" he talked to me in an accommodating way, like anyone would do with a friend too drunk to think clearly.
​ "Yes! There's even two of you now."
​ "Of course, that would be the only possible reason." We reached the parking lot.
​ "Say Dan, have you come back to help me with Shallie? But if you're a ghost, can you just call her for me?" I grabbed his arm. "Can you? Can you bring her to me?" Suddenly all the fake happiness I was feeling before left me in a deep, black desperation. Dan's expression changed too, and got darker.
​ "I'm not a ghost, Drew," he said, calmly, securing the helmet under my chin. "I'm sorry," he added. ~ Elen Chase

Desperation works in job search as well as it does in dating. ~ Darrell Gurney

Sometimes we don't know that it's best to run. Hanging on in desperation seems to be our way. ~ Amy A. Bartol

Manifesting your desires requires an understanding of the universe's abundance and inherently giving nature. If you ask from a position of fear or desperation, you are sending out your fear and desperation, and the universe, giving, reflecting, and non-judgmental as it is, will send those right back at you. ~ Stephen Richards

What I feel for you … It's all-consuming,he breathed, leaning his forehead against mine again. 'It's almost debilitating. It's too much. It's … I can't even describe it, but being with you is … there's this intensity inside me all the time, this … constant pull, desperation … it's like you're branded on me or something. And it bloody well burns. ~ Samantha Young

But don't you see, all human decisions are made like this. Do you think the mother knows what will happen to the child in her womb? Dear God, we are lost, I tell you. What does it matter if you give it to me and it's wrong! There is no wrong! There is only desperation, and I would have it! I want to live forever with you. ~ Anne Rice

No healthy mind could bring itself to torture another human being. ~ Lance Conrad

Your eye will no longer linger on the light, it will no longer trace constellations. You'll care only about the darkness and you'll watch it for hours, for days, maybe even for years, trying in vain to believe you're some kind of indispensable, universe-appointed sentinel, as if just by looking you could actually keep it all at bay. ~ Mark Z. Danielewski

If you're going to go for 'it' you have a common thing you share with other artists; that's desperation. You jump out a window style-wise. Try to put it together before you hit the ground. ~ Alex Katz

Desperation, weakness, vulnerability - these things will always be exploited. You need to protect the weak, ring-fence them, with something far stronger than empathy. ~ Zadie Smith

i've learned to kiss you with my eyes. there are times you do not see me as i kiss you with a quiet desperation that you would never understand. ~ K.Y. Robinson

Love casts out fear; but conversely fear casts out love. And not only love. Fear also casts out intelligence, casts out goodness, casts out all thought of beauty and truth. What remains in the bum or studiedly jocular desperation of one who is aware of the obscene Presence in the corner of the room and knows that the door is locked, that there aren't any windows. And now the thing bears down on him. He feels a hand on his sleeve, smells a stinking breath, as the executioner's assistant leans almost amorously toward him. "Your turn next, brother. Kindly step this way." And in an instant his quiet terror is transmuted into a frenzy as violent as it is futile. There is no longer a man among his fellow men, no longer a rational being speaking articulately to other rational beings; there is only a lacerated animal, screaming and struggling in the trap. For in the end fear casts out even a man's humanity. And fear, my good friends, fear is the very basis and foundation of modern life. Fear of the much touted technology which, while it raises out standard of living, increases the probability of our violently dying. Fear of the science which takes away the one hand even more than what it so profusely gives with the other. Fear of the demonstrably fatal institutions for while, in our suicidal loyalty, we are ready to kill and die. Fear of the Great Men whom we have raised, and by popular acclaim, to a power which they use, inevitably, to murder and enslave us. Fear of the war we don't ~ Aldous Huxley

She shook her head. She had been in that exact position on a number of occasions with Clark. She knew how easy it could be to just escape with Jack when she couldn't be around Clark. As wrong as she knew it was, she hadn't been able to stop herself. She had always thought that desperation came from wanting Jack, but maybe things were different with him. Perhaps he had always done it because he enjoyed the cloak and dagger effect of hiding and running away from his life with her. ~ K.A. Linde

By her desperate actions, she drove others to desperation, and so we came to be deprived of our brightest ally , our purest colors. ~ Cameron Dokey

I have ne'er been in a chamber with a lawyer when I did not wish either to scream with desperation or else fall into the deepest of sleeps, e'en when the matter concern'd my own future most profoundly. ~ Erica Jong

In other circumstances, if Jamie hadn't been so miserable, Ryan would have laughed. Jamie rarely got so pissed that he lost the thread of the conversation. "Yes, you are." Cradling Jamie's face, he brushed his lips against Jamie's forehead. "Everything will be fine, you'll see." He kissed Jamie's temple.

Jamie shuddered. "Don't. Not now. I can't - not now."

Frowning, Ryan pulled back to look at his friend.

Jamie was staring at him oddly, his lips parted and curled in half a grimace, his eyes gleaming with desperation. "I - " he said before suddenly lunging forward and closing the distance between their mouths.

For a moment, Ryan's alcohol-fogged brain couldn't understand what was going on.

Jamie was kissing him.

Jamie was kissing him. Or at least trying to, his lips clumsy and awkward but desperate and needy - so needy it was weirding Ryan out. ~ Alessandra Hazard

If you truly loved someone and they couldn't be in your life you won't hurt them. You will pray for them. You will hope that they find their happiness and place in this world. You will want them to have the best life because love isn't about possession, fear or desperation. When you have a grasp on eternity you don't need to feel time is running out. Time is all you have. Love isn't a game of musical chairs--grab a partner and sit down. It is a search for the right fit for your soul and life purpose. In a life that never ends you will either find the one that sees you as much as you see them, 0r who knows? Maybe, if there are such things as soulmates, God will introduce you, but keep you far enough apart, until each of you fulfill something more important for your growth or God's plan. Regardless, when you can face eternity alone you will know what true love is and that letting go is not an insult to your soul. You can smile because the person you loved has your blessings of protection with them and God has your best interest also in mind. You will find that person to complete you because God wants you to, as much as you do. ~ Shannon L. Alder

Despair makes victims sometimes victors. ~ Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

People need me. I fill them. If they can't see me for a while they get desperate, they get sick. But if I see them too often I get sick. It's hard to feed without getting fed. ~ Charles Bukowski

Man cries, his tears dry up and run out. So he becomes a devil, reduced to a monster. ~ Kohta Hirano

The kiss ignited like a rocket flash. Not that this surprised her. Everything pertaining to Mark seemed to burn hot and fast. Frustration, lust ...
His mouth was rough, hot and hungry on hers as he pulled her closer, taking control. She heard herself moan, kissing him with helpless desperation. If dessert was her usual drug of choice, it'd just been replaced because she couldn't seem to get enough of him. ~ Jill Shalvis

Remember what we wrote? 'And just as I cannot imagine how I survived the past without you ... I cannot imagine a future without you.' Remember? Well, I'm the future without her, buddy boy, and I can tell you right now that it's not something you're going to relish. ~ Peter David

The uncertainty, the fear of the unknown was driving him, almost to the point of desperation. He felt as if he was going down a dark stairway, missing a step, hurtling into the unknown and having no idea where he would land. ~ Ken Puddicombe

When a film is successful, you don't need to shout about it from the rooftops. I don't believe in going into overdrive. There's no desperation to be acknowledged as the reason for a film's success. ~ Emraan Hashmi

I know the hard ground and the taste of the salt water I'm made of and the way even getting out of bed feels impossible some days. I know how some moments there's not even enough air.

I know the desperate and the bargains you want to make with the universe and every last prayer you've prayed to gods you don't even believe in.

But stupid? No, love.

Not stupid. Not you. You are infinitely, impossibly, beautifully human. ~ Jeanette LeBlanc

Loneliness and desperation are only possible when we have lost touch with our beauty within. ~ Bryant McGill

My host sister had crossed over to the dark side.
Desperation had just made this good girl go bad. ~ Jenny B. Jones

There is point in your life when you come face to face with the reality that you cannot take another step on your own. For me, I had never experienced that point, but depression brought me there. I have slowly, painfully and continually been confronted by my brokenness. Coming to terms with the fact that I am broken has been at the center of my accepting my being loved.
For me, now, there exists a sense of desperate need for what God brings to my spiritual and mental self. Without His voice I cannot cope with the darkness, but with His whisper of "you are My beloved", I can take a step each day away from the chasm. I am broken but not beyond mending, not beyond love.
It has been this desperation that has opened a crevice in which I am seeing Him for the first time. He is why my soul can find some peace even when my mind is dark and numb. It is this love that continually has brought me back from the edge of the impostor to the honesty of my broken, inner self ~ David Hulon Hood

The Spirit of your child bewails the dead, and mingles with the dead - dead hopes, dead fancies, dead imaginings of youth,' returned the Bell, 'but she is living. Learn from her life, a living truth. Learn from the creature dearest to your heart, how bad the bad are born. See every bud and leaf plucked one by one from off the fairest stem, and know how bare and wretched it may be. Follow her! To desperation! ~ Charles Dickens

People who are out of control desperately need to observe your healthy boundaries in-play to learn from your example. ~ Bryant McGill

In all probability an outburst of desperation in the midst of general submissiveness will always help. ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I just want to know if I can go to Heaven. That's all I want in life, salvation in the next. ~ Sarah Gracia

So now, out of desperation, I'm back to prayer. I'm back to prayer, sheepishly, because I couldn't make my life work without it. I pray out of sheer lack of options. ~ Shauna Niequist

In my desperation to try to lull myself into a gentle sloom, I have created a list of things that will often assist my descent into delicious treacle-sleep. The list includes a series of things I can do if I go to bed and wake up early, and includes things like playing games and reading books, but one item that continually seems to work is telling myself:

The faster I go to sleep, the faster I can have cookies for breakfast.

This idea might seem rudimentary, but it staves off the sulks long enough that I can find a few hours of sleep, even on the hottest of days. If only Biscuit Power worked for other insomniacs, cookies might save humanity from itself. ~ Michelle Franklin

Do our dreams carry messages from the great beyond, sent by the people we have lost, or are they a reflection of our desperation and wishful thinking? ~ Zeina Kassem

In a typical desperation for quick answers, easily understood, people had turned to primitive worship as the solution. With less than success. Not only had they died as quickly as the rest of the people, but they had died with terror in their hearts, with a mortal dread flowing in their very veins. ~ Richard Matheson

His soul really shone in the dark desperation of our prison ... [Bonhoeffer] had always been afraid that he would not be strong enough to stand such a test but now he knew there was nothing in life of which one need ever be afraid. ~ Payne Best

[On England's elimination from the 2002 World Cup after losing 2-1 to Brazil] Never was Steven Gerrard more noticeably missed, for his ability to pass, rather than kick the ball over 40 yards and for his steely mentality. Not for the first time, Eriksson's substitutions were baffling. The situation cried for Joe Cole, the one England player with a trick to beat a man, but it was the convalescent Kieron Dyer who was sent on, in place of Sinclair. Owen, never fully fit, was withdrawn after 80 minutes, at which stage Eriksson sent on Darius Vassell and Teddy Sheringham in a move which smacked of desperation, rather than tactical nous. From Sven-Goran Eriksson: The Final Reckoning ~ Joe Lovejoy

education without inspiration is only a recipe for desperation ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

I was teaching live drawing in a community college and students started zoning in on the face and spending a couple of hours on that and then putting the rest of the body on the face only in the last hour. It didn't work to just tell them, 'Well, you're really not thinking of the body as a totality.' So in desperation I would put a drape over the model's head so they couldn't see it. They had to draw the body and then at the end of the session for an hour I would take the drape off just to try to reverse their procedure. ~ John Baldessari

Technology isn't rational; with luck, it's a runaway horse, foaming at the mouth, ready to throw itself off a cliff in desperation. Our problem is that culture's tied to that horse. ~ Martín Felipe Castagnet

In fact her maturity and blood kinship converted her passion to fever, so it was more affliction than affection. It literally knocked her down at night, and raised her up in the morning, for when she dragged herself off to bed, having spent another day without his presence, her heart beat like a gloved fist against her ribs. And in the morning, long before she was fully awake, she felt a longing so bitter and tight it yanked her out of a sleep swept clean of dreams. ~ Toni Morrison

Don't ever let desperation take the seat of inspiration in you! Always live inspired no matter what! For though something might be wrong somewhere, something is always right somewhere! If you have life, be alive and smile! ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Because something inside of my heart is ripping apart and it feels like fear, it tastes like panic and anxiety and desperation and I don't know how to understand th image in front of me. I don't want to see Warner like this. I don't want to think of him as anything other than a monster.
This isn't right ~ Tahereh Mafi

Men can imagine their own deaths, they can see them coming, and the mere though of impending death acts like an aphrodisiac. A dog or rabbit doesn't behave like that. Take birds
in a lean season they cut down on the eggs, or they won't mate at all. They put their energy into staying alive themselves until times get better. But human beings hope they can stick their souls into someone else, some new version of themselves, and live on forever.
As a species were doomed by hope, then?
You could call it hope. That, or desperation.
But we're doomed without hope, as well, said Jimmy.
Only as individuals, said Crake cheerfully. ~ Margaret Atwood

Point Partageuse got its name from French explorers who mapped the cape that jutted from the south-western corner of the Australian continent well before the British dash to colonize the west began in 1826. Since then, settlers had trickled north from Albany and south from the Swan River Colony, laying claim to the virgin forests in the hundreds of miles between. Cathedral-high trees were felled with handsaws to create grazing pasture; scrawny roads were hewn inch by stubborn inch by pale-skinned fellows with teams of shire horses, as this land, which had never before been scarred by man, was excoriated and burned, mapped and measured and meted out to those willing to try their luck in a hemisphere which might bring them desperation, death, or fortune beyond their dreams. ~ M.L. Stedman

His desperation and misery swept her up like a storm capturing the sea. She turned her mind to even these feelings, because they were his, like his terrified rage in the lift when they had first met, being wrapped in his arms in the cold well, being dazzled by his wonder at the woods and her home and her. Like being a child, awareness of him the morning chorus that woke her and the lullaby that sent her to sleep, his thoughts always her first and last song.
I love you, Kami told him, and cut. ~ Sarah Rees Brennan

The novel used to feed our search for meaning. Quoting Bill. It was the great secular transcendence. The Latin mass of language, character, occasional new truth. But our desperation has led us toward something larger and darker. So we turn to the news, which provides an unremitting mood of catastrophe. This is where we find emotional experience not available elsewhere. We don't need the novel. Quoting Bill. We don't even need catastrophes, necessarily. We only need the reports and predictions and warnings. ~ Don DeLillo

Hanging on in Quiet Desperation is the English Way ~ Roger Waters

You might as well ask why a middle-aged man with no criminal record might put a paper bag over his head and rob a bank. I acted out of personal desperation. ~ Aldrich Ames

On the surface, everyday life has become much more comfortable than ever before. Yet people still lead lives of quiet desperation. The source of this desperation is repression, a sense that you cannot be what you want to be, cannot feel what you want to feel, cannot do what you want to do. ~ Deepak Chopra

We look up for inspiration, down for desperation, right and left for information. ~ Tyga

Remaining calm in times of desperation makes way for opportunity. ~ Simon Sinek

As I looked about the world, so much of it impoverished, I became increasingly uncomfortable about having so much while my brothers and sisters were starving. Finally I had to find another way. The turning point came when, in desperation and out of a very deep seeking for a meaningful way of life, I walked all one night through the woods. I came to a moonlit glade and prayed. ~ Peace Pilgrim

Those inventors looked to their own lives as the raw materials for innovation. What's notable is that, in each case, they were often in an emotional state. We're more likely to recognize discoveries hidden in our own experiences when necessity pushes us, when panic or frustrations cause us to throw old ideas into new settings. Psychologists call this "creative desperation." Not all creativity relies on panic, of course. ~ Charles Duhigg

Desperation seeps through the seams of fear. ~ T.A. Cline

The second hand on the clock shook and bolted forward like someone at first terrified with anxiety, then, bolstered by desperation, jumping off a cliff only to get stuck in midair. ~ Ottessa Moshfegh

Eviction reveals people's vulnerability and desperation, as well as their ingenuity and guts. ~ Matthew Desmond

Just those three words, said and meant. I love you.
They were quite hopeless. He said it as he might have said, I have cancer.
His fairy story. ~ John Fowles

Reminding me again and again and again that longing was not desperation and loneliness was not failure. And that, ironically, the less I tried to manipulate my inner experience, the more peaceful and content I felt.

If you feel sad sometimes, it's not because you're single--it's because you're alive. ~ Sara Eckel

I stroke the bleached bones of ancient trees
felled long-ago by industry or cold desperation
and wonder of another almost summer when two fell asleep
beneath her arms, curling into each other
like wind-swept branches on the edge of tomorrow ... ~ Kate Mullane Robertson

Down the Woodstock Road towards them an elderly, abnormally thin man was pedalling, his thin white hair streaming in the wind and sheer desperation in his eyes. Immediately behind him, running for their lives, came Scylla and Charybdis; behind them, a milling, shouting rout of undergraduates, with Mr Adrian Barnaby (on a bicycle) well in the van; behind them, the junior proctor, the University Marshal, and two bullers, packed into a small Austin car and looking very elect, severe and ineffectual; and last of all, faint but pursuing, lumbered the ungainly form of Mr Hoskins. ~ Edmund Crispin

This could be the last night of our lives, certainly the last even barely ordinary one. The last night we go to sleep and get up just as we always have. And all I could think of was that I wanted to spend it with you."
Her heart skipped a beat. "Jace-"
"I don't mean it like that," he said. "I won't touch you, not if you don't want me to. I know it's wrong - God, it's all kinds of wrong - but I just want to lie down with you and wake up with you, just once, just once ever in my life." There was desperation in his voice. "It's just this one night. In the grand scheme of things, how much can this one night matter?"
... There was nothing she had ever wanted in her life more than she wanted this night with Jace.
"Close the curtains, then, before you come to bed," she said. "I can't sleep with this much light in the room. ~ Cassandra Clare

Desperate people do foolish things, don't be one of them. ~ Jenni Young

The aficionado prefers a crazy bomb to a mediocrity, because the musical as a form has such potential as entertainment that the merely adequate can fatigue the spirit while the disaster can amuse with its drastic misjudgments and desperation gambles. ~ Ethan Mordden

It's really not so good to have time. Rush, scramble, desperation, this missed, that left behind, those others too big to fit into such a small space
that's the way life was meant to be. You're supposed to be too late for some things. Don't worry about it. ~ Peter S. Beagle

My life growing up was a twisted Bronx version of 'The Color Purple.' It had a much different soundtrack and no trees, but that desperation was the same. ~ Tracy Morgan

I walked to Mairangi Bay beach, day after day, seeking companionship in the roar of the ocean, and contemplating the shipwreck of my life. There, in that isolated wilderness, amidst the screaming gulls, and consistent rhythm of the tides, I channeled my chaotic thoughts through my pen and released them into poetry, until the quiet desperation passed and I was secure in the knowledge that I had made it through another day. ~ B.G. Bowers

Glory is revealed most clearly in desperation, dependance, and discomfort. ~ Alia Joy

We have suffered unnumbered ills and crimes in the name of the Law of the Land. Our men, women and children have suffered not only the basic brutality of stoop labor, and the most obvious injustices of the system; they have also suffered the desperation of knowing that the system caters to the greed of callous men and not to our needs. Now we will suffer for the purpose of ending the poverty, the misery, and the injustice, with the hope that our children will not be exploited as we have been. They have imposed hungers on us, and now we hunger for justice. ~ Cesar Chavez

i was once swallowed in a dark shroud
of fear, pain, and self-loathing
which i believed i couldn't voice
because if i spoke of my loneliness
would it not prove my uselessness?
light could not break the shadows
unless i asked for help
and when i finally became so lost
i reached out in desperation
for even the smallest guidance
every tearful thought i had hidden
was exposed in all of its falsehood
depression is not the problem
it's when we choose to conceal it



-My Relationship with Depression ~ Michelle S. Smith

Lying is manipulation. I prefer to call what I did 'improvisation in times of desperation. ~ Katie Kacvinsky

Ben wrapped his fingers tightly around mine, brown eyes fierce, his thoughts a maelstrom of anger and worry. He was only thinking of me. Of getting me away. Keep me safe.
Ben was ready to die for me.
Chance halted before a battered case halfway down the wall. He began pulling on books, muttering to himself as he shoved each one aside.
They won't get you, Ben promised abruptly. I felt his determination flowing through the bond, mixed with love and desperation. He really would give his life to protect mine. ~ Kathy Reichs

You can become an alcoholic working in an office in Los Angeles. It's very easy to say because I do this shameful job I take drugs or drink, but the real reason prostitutes take drugs and drink is because prostitution is a party area. It's not about desperation, it's the surroundings. ~ Michael Glawogger

Don't judge me. Ethics and morality no longer exist in our world. It's a luxury of the past, afforded only to those who had a future. ~ T.M. Williams

There was no way to abandon guilt, no decent way to disown it. All the tangles and knots of bitterness and desperation and fear had to be pitied. No, better, grace had to fall over them. ~ Marilynne Robinson

the deepest form of humiliation isn't experienced in the eyes of others, but in the lonely desperation of oneself. ~ Natalia Sylvester

I wasn't old enough to remember the day Daddy sent her there. The way he told it, she was stealing crank and spent most of her time climbing around the peter tree. So he sent her to this place. Loved her too much to give her nothing, but giving her anything at all squared things so he'd never have to love her again. ~ David Joy

He who could write so easily, who could spend a thousand words down along his plunging fingers on the green-rubber keyboard of his machine, had stumbled like a first-grader over this single paragraph. A dozen times he had begun it and written into it a naked desperation; a dozen times he had begun it and written into it the frosted mathematics of logic. Finally he'd written out quickly the sentences that kept cropping up in all the versions. Those must be, to whatever censor there was in him, the most acceptable ones. He sealed it without rereading it and went out to mail it. An hour later he despised himself for having sent it. ~ Laura Z. Hobson

Yelling is a sign of desperation, an indication that you're out of options, with nothing behind your back but volume. ~ Emma Chase

Unto him who is able to keep us from falling, and lift us from the dark to the bright mountain of hope, from the midnight of desperation to the daybreak of joy, to him be power and authority for ever and ever. ~ Martin Luther

We don't attack any veteran, at all, ever, for their service record. We thank them. And the fact that somebody wanted to do that for political gain, shows the desperation of which some people unfortunately in the Republican Party want to keep and seize power. ~ Matt Shea

He pulled me toward him so that I was resting on my side. I coughed up some more water. He took off his wet shirt and folded it. Then he gently lifted me and placed it under my sore head, which hurt too much to appreciate his…bronzed…sculpted…muscular…bare chest.
Well I guess I must be okay if I can appreciate the view, I thought. Sheesh, I'd have to be dead not to appreciate it.
I winced as Ren's hand brushed against my head, shaking me from my reverie.
"You've got a major bump here."
I reached up to feel the giant lump on the back of my skull. I gingerly touched it and recalled the source of my headache. I must have lost consciousness when the rock hit me. Ren saved my life. Again.
I looked up at him. He was kneeling next to me with a look of desperation on his face, and his body was shaking. I realized that he must have changed to a man, dragged me out of the pool, and then remained by my side until I woke up. Who knows how long I've been laying here unconscious.
"Ren, you're in pain. You've been in this form too long today."
He shook his head in denial, but I saw him grit his teeth.
I pressed my hand on his arm. "I'll be okay. It's just a bump on the head. Don't worry about me. I'm sure Mr. Kadam has some aspirin tucked away in the backpack. I'll just take that and lie down to rest for a while. I'll be alright."
He trailed his finger slowly from my temple to my cheek and smiled softly. When he pulled back, his whole arm shook a ~ Colleen Houck

Something they seem to omit to mention in Boston AA when you're new and out of your skull with desperation and ready to eliminate your map and they tell you how it'll all get better and better as you abstain and recover: they somehow omit to mention that the way it gets better and you get better is through pain. Not around pain, or in spite of it. ~ David Foster Wallace

Neil once told me you had to become a monster so that you didn't become the victim of one instead. I don't care what anyone says. I believe him. ~ Shirley Marr

Eleanor…" He hesitated, and she felt his other hand come up to tilt her face up to his. "I need you…just for a few minutes…"

She read the hunger in his voice, the ache for what he"d lost, the grief…

"Take what you need, Curry," she said quietly, her body yielding to his in an unspoken invitation.

"I won"t hurt you…" he whispered unsteadily as he bent to her upturned mouth, feeling it open deliciously as his lips touched it so that the restraint went out of him almost immediately. He lifted her across his knees and kissed her like a drowning man who never expected to feel a woman's softness again. There was desperation in the rough mouth invading hers, urgency. His arms contracted and hurt her, bringing a soft moan from her lips. ~ Diana Palmer

It is an incurable act of desperation that men seek for certainty! It is like seeking for an unshakable place inside a shaking ship! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

With an utterly foreign sense of desperation, he did something that he'd never, in all his thirty-three years, thought he would do. He tripped her. ~ Rhyannon Byrd

People who have life-challenging experiences who choose to remain invested in a consistent catastrophic interpretation are not the ones I meet. I have met many more people who have recognized how vital it is to their healing and to the quality of their life to interpret their experiences differently. That is why some of the people I've met who have life-challenging illnesses are much happier than some people I've known who are physically quite healthy and yet who live lives of greater desperation and depression. ~ Marianne Williamson

Mr. Duffy Napp has just transmitted a nine-word e-mail asking that I immediately send a letter of reference to your firm on his behalf; his request has summoned from the basement of my heart a star-spangled constellation of joy, so eager am I to see Mr. Napp well established at Maladin IT.

As for the basis of our acquaintanceship: I am a professor in an English department whose members consult Tech Help - aka Mr. Napp - only in moments of desperation. For example, let us imagine that a computer screen, on the penultimate page of a lengthy document, winks coyly, twice, and before the "save" button can be deployed, adopts a Stygian façade. In such a circumstance one's only recourse - unpalatable though it may be - is to plead for assistance from a yawning adolescent who will roll his eyes at the prospect of one's limited capabilities and helpless despair. I often imagine that in olden days people like myself would crawl to the doorway of Tech Help on our knees, bearing baskets of food, offerings of the harvest, the inner organs of neighbors and friends - all in exchange for a tenuous promise from these careless and inattentive gods that the thoughts we entrusted to our computers will be restored unharmed.

Colleagues have warned me that the departure of Mr. Napp, our only remaining Tech Help employee, will leave us in darkness. I am ready. I have girded my loins and dispatched a secular prayer in the hope that, given the abysmal job market, a former maso ~ Julie Schumacher

You always have to be prepared that the thing we want most desperately to happen may not happen the way we think. That takes faith. So why not try wanting to see something happen without desperation. ~ Art Hochberg

Perhaps, when it got utterly dark, the peace of the darkness would become the same as light so that my last experience would become as mysterious and musical as my first, so that in my last darkness there might not be the same need of understanding anything so far away as the world anymore. ~ Derek Raymond

I know I shouldn't be doing this. I know I'm poking a wound, not healing it. I know there's no way to have a future with Rhiannon.
All I'm doing is extending the past by a day. ~ David Levithan

I love you, Jeremy."

He still felt it, that wince of doubt. The urge to push her away. She said it so simply. As though there was nothing easier, more natural in the world. The words themselves hung in the air, so tiny, so bare.

Jeremy felt as though she'd thrust a frail, delicate, birdlike thing into his big, clumsy hands, charging him to keep it safe. And God forgive him, his first impulse was to shove it away. He would destroy it, surely. In his desperation, he would grasp it so tightly it would break into a thousand pieces - and his own heart would break along with it. ~ Tessa Dare